


A Path of Stars That Led Me to You

by livinglittlelie



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Divergence, Changing curse words with Quiznak to keep this PG-13, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Lance enjoys messing with Past Keith, M/M, Pretty sure cadets don’t share rooms at the Garrison but for the sake of this AU now they do, Set in Season 6 (Kinda), Slow Burn, Time Travel AU, lots of teasing, time jumps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-02 13:29:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16306058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livinglittlelie/pseuds/livinglittlelie
Summary: In their trip through the Quantum Abyss, Keith and Krolia had seen several visions of the past and future brought by the distortion of space and time. However, as the space whale travels deeper and deeper into the abyss, time and space get more distorted by the minute, until Keith no longer sees visions of the past, but he is dragged through time and space instead.Keith had never imagined he would be travelling in time and space, and he hadn’t expected the first person he would see on the other side would be Lance.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Leisey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leisey/gifts), [wonderfulwizardofthozz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonderfulwizardofthozz/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Leise and Ess! I'm sorry for being late for yours, waifu, but if you look at the word count you'll understand.
> 
> Anyway, for all the time I've spent fighting off the need to write voltron fics, I guess your birthday are reason good enough. (And please, the next time that I decide to write another long ass fic in 20 days, please stop me),
> 
> Love you, girls!

For all the time Keith had spent daydreaming as a kid, or thinking up conspiracy theories after Shiro disappeared, he’d never imagined his life would end up changing so drastically as it did.

While he was at the Garrison, he knew he would end up exploring space somehow. It had been his dream since he was young, when his father used to talk to him about the universe late into the night with a bittersweet smile on his face. Later, after his father died, and Shiro rescued him from the sea of unknown faces he’d been drowning in, it became his goal.

Space was something he’d adored for a long time, but not even in his wildest dreams—or maybe he should say nightmares—had he imagined he would end up tangled in an intergalactic war that had lasted ten thousand years. In addition, of course, he’d never expected to learn about his family along the way.

Nevertheless, here Keith was, working alongside an alien revolutionary organization and travelling through a portal between realities with his alien mother and alien wolf, following a lead that would help defeat an alien race trying to conquer the universe.

Keith’s life had been pretty complicated since he’d stepped onto the Blue Lion on Earth.

His current predicament was something Keith hadn’t been expecting either. He’d left the Blade’s headquarters on a simple rescue mission, and he had ended up involved in yet another suicide mission, going through what Krolia named the “Quantum Abyss”; a chaotic formation that bent space and time itself. They had been lucky to hijack a space-abyss whale, which seemed unbothered by the distortion happening around them, but it wasn’t as if their chances of survival had improved much.

It had already been three months since they started their mission. Since then, they’d fallen into a weirdly normal routine of scouting for food and water and taking care of their makeshift camp. Aside from the odd attack from creatures living on the space whale, and the occasional vision product of time collapsing around them, Keith would call their trip peaceful, almost boring.

He knew he had to be patient, but he was already getting restless. Who knew how long they were going to be stuck there?

Roughly two months and a half into their journey, Keith woke up the same way he had done every day since they were first stranded; drowsy and disoriented, so used to waking up to an alarm or to his personal comm chiming, and Kovalian demanding he be at the Commander’s room in less than five doboshes.

Waking up by himself made him feel defenceless, useless. He didn’t like the feeling very much.

Keith sat up and stretched his sore limbs, tired of sleeping on the floor. He let his arms fall to his sides and looked up, his brain slowly switching on. He felt something nudging his hand, and he looked down to see his wolf rubbing his nose on his skin, silently asking for pets. He let out a chuckle, his voice still rough with sleep, and buried his fingers on the wolf’s thick fur.

“Morning, buddy.”

“I see you’ve woken up, Keith,” another voice said.

Keith blinked up at Krolia. “Morning.”

She was carrying some chopped wood—or whatever the space trees were made of—which she piled up near their makeshift beds. She threw one of the logs onto the fire, making sure it stayed lit, and sat down on the floor near him.

“Did you sleep well?”

Keith shrugged his shoulders, groaning when his back cracked at the action. “I slept. How about you? Do you need to go to sleep? I can keep watch.”

Krolia’s lips quirked up in a small smile. “I can stay up a little bit longer, thank you. I’m not used to sleeping a lot.”

Keith hadn’t been used to sleeping a lot either before he came here, but it looked like boredom was one of the best sedatives in the universe. He grabbed a stick and started playing with the logs, watching the fire crack and the burning cinders fly into the sky.

The wolf stood up and trotted towards Krolia, nudging her shoulder with his snout. She lowered her gaze to the animal, who whined in a familiar way. She chuckled and took out some dry meat from a bag they’d made out of leaves and threw it in a wide arc. The wolf disappeared from her side, only to appear with his jaws chomping on the jerky mid-air. He landed on his paws and his blue markings glowed.

“What a strange creature,” Krolia commented. “I have never seen a being that could teleport on its own, and with such control.”

“Maybe it’s something to do with the Abyss?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe. I wonder if he’ll be able to teleport once we’re out of here.”

“We’ll find out eventually, I guess.” He grinned as an afterthought. “We’ll need to make sure that Pidge doesn’t get near him, though. I don't want to know the lengths she'll go to find out how he does it. Uh, the green paladin,” he added later as a clarification.

Krolia stayed silent for a while, then kept talking. “You sound fond when you talk about the paladins. I’ve seen them in many of our visions. They are a strange group of people, weren’t they?”

Keith couldn’t keep the small smile from his face. “They are. We didn’t get along at first, and we fought a lot, but we made a very good team in the end.” He sighed. “Even when… even when Shiro disappeared and I was chosen to be the black paladin, we managed to stick together as a team, somehow.”

“I’m glad you managed to find people like that. However… I still can’t understand why you left your team to join the Blades of Marmora. You had a place with them, and you were treasured. So, why did you leave?”

Keith crossed his arms in a defensive stance. He suddenly felt like he was suffocating. He didn’t want to talk about it; he didn’t even want to think about it.

Seeing his posture, Krolia sighed, giving up. “There was another vision while we were sleeping; I don’t know if you felt it.” She hummed, pensive. “Those visions… do you feel like they’re getting stronger?”

Thankful for the not-so-subtle change of subject, Keith relaxed and placed his hands on the floor, shifting and resting his weight on them. “Yeah, I think so. The visions seem to be longer.”

“Yes.” Her face hardened. “I don’t like it.”

“Why?”

“I’m not an expert, but the visions becoming longer could mean that time is becoming more unstable around us. Time and space are woven together tightly, so if time is falling apart like that, space will follow shortly. If that ends up happening… I’m not sure what will happen to us.”

Keith felt uneasiness pooling in his gut, but he tried to quash it down. “It’ll be fine.”

Krolia didn’t seem convinced, and to be honest, Keith wasn’t either. There were many things in the universe surrounding them that he didn’t understand, hundreds of complex theories that he wouldn’t even try to comprehend. Pidge had wasted hours and hours trying to explain the theory of relativity without success, but even he could feel the gravity of Krolia’s words.

Moreover, he could feel the straining of time on his own. He could feel how time seemed to slow down or speed up at odd times, and that instability usually preceded a vision hitting them.

Keith was a man who trusted his instincts, and his instincts were screaming at him to be careful.

Since they started their journey on the space whale, Keith had tried to keep track of how many days they had been stuck in the Abyss. It had been two months and seventeen days already.

It wasn't something he'd ever cared about before; he had lived a life of self-imposed solitude after all, his mind focused solely on discovering what had happened to Shiro. But then he had met his team, and Keith had changed. He cared about things he hadn't before, and most of all, he cared for _them_. They had barged into his life unexpectedly, and even if he’d tried to push them away with all his might, they kept coming back.

The visions brought back memories, both good and bad. At first, he had had visions of his childhood, of when Shiro found him and his new life started. But as time went on, they featured more and more of his team, to the point where every time the visions hit, their faces were always waiting for him when he opened his eyes.

He hadn’t let himself dwell on them much when he left to join the Blades, instead focusing on the mission and leaving everything else in the background. But the visions had made him slow down, and unwanted thoughts started piling up in his mind.

It had been two months and seventeen days since he had known anything at all about Voltron, and he missed his friends.

He knew he had made his choice a long time ago. He had chosen to leave the team to learn more about himself. He had chosen to leave the team to give Shiro back his spot as leader, to let Lance stay with the Red Lion as the second in command, a position that fit him better than it ever did Keith. He had chosen knowledge over friendship, and he had to live with the consequences.

He didn’t regret making that decision, though. He didn't regret meeting Krolia, far from it. In the little time he'd been with her, he'd learnt more about himself, his family, his life, than he'd ever expected to. Surprisingly, she had become a steady support for his loneliness, offering silent companionship and seemingly endless understanding, even when Keith struggled to express his feelings.

But even then, he... he missed his friends. He missed sparring with Shiro, bumping into Pidge at odd hours of the night, and Hunk’s food and reassuring words. He missed how Allura always knew how to get them out of any difficult situation, and Coran’s odd sense of humour. And, surprisingly, he missed Lance and his teasing, and how he seemed to light up every room he was in.

Seeing his team in so many of his visions did little to help him stop thinking about them.

Before he could even try to shake off those thoughts to stop himself drowning in memories, he saw a flash from the corner of his eye. He looked up to the sky, only to see another wave coming at them. He quickly grabbed the wolf’s neck and closed his eyes, desperately hoping that it would be one of Krolia’s visions.

But when he opened his eyes and saw Shiro strapped to an examination table, Keith couldn’t contain the groan that slipped past his lips. He saw himself storming in, his face covered with a red handkerchief, and beating up the scientists trying to restrain Shiro. When he went to get Shiro out of there, he was stopped by Lance, still annoying and loud-mouthed, but willing to help him carry Shiro outside, even if he had done it for his own selfish reasons.

And as fast as the vision started, it ended, giving Keith whiplash. He let go of the wolf slowly and took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing thoughts. Luckily, the vision had been short, and he hadn’t had time to dwell on it too much, but despite this, the ill-timed vision, combined with his earlier thoughts had left him more shaken up than he had expected.

“Keith?”

He almost groaned out loud when Krolia called his name. Despite being tight-lipped about their respective pasts, they had a silent agreement to talk about the visions after they had them, just to get to know each other. Nothing brought a family closer than reliving the past, he guessed.

Moreover, Keith had already seen many memories Krolia hadn’t been happy to see again, and even then, she had answered all his questions with an amount of patience he never expected her to have. So he guessed he owed her.

Knowing that, Keith took a deep breath and braced himself. “Yes?”

“Those in the vision…” she started, studying Keith’s every reaction. “Those were Shiro and the Blue Paladin, right? What was his name?”

Keith released the air he was holding in, and a glimpse of a cocky smirk and bright blue eyes appeared in his mind, almost taunting him.

“His name is Lance,” he mumbled, then added as an afterthought, “and he’s the Red Paladin now.”

 _That is if nothing happened to him since you were gone,_ a cruel part of his subconscious decided to add, a part that Keith immediately buried deep down. He _didn’t need_ those kind of thoughts clouding his mind.

“How is he like?” Krolia asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.

Keith snorted. “Loud. Annoying. A flirt.” _Courageous, warm, charismatic,_ his mind supplied. “As you saw, we didn’t get along very well at first, but when Shiro disappeared and I had to become the Black Paladin, he was a big help. We were… friends, I think.”

“I’m glad you found support in him. I would like to meet your teammates one day.”

“We can meet them once the mission is over. We can even head directly to the Castle of Lions and tell them about what we discover at the other side of this abyss. I’m sure Allura would love to know about that source of clean Quintessence.”

“Won’t that be your first time visiting the Castle of Lions since you left?”

Keith’s lips pursed in a thin line as he nodded. It was true. When he had left the team, he had done it angry at them and himself, and he hadn’t contemplated ever coming back. Since then, things had cooled down a lot and he’d even collaborated with them, but he hadn’t stepped inside the Castle yet.

And Keith knew exactly why. He knew that, once he went inside the Castle, he would find it harder and harder to find reasons to leave, to continue risking his life for the Blade. He knew that once he stepped inside, he wouldn’t come out.

After all, one of the main reasons he’d joined the Blade was to know more about his past. That thirst quenched, he didn’t feel like wandering anymore.

Maybe it was time to go back home.

Suddenly, there was a loud rumbling around them, and three heads snapped up to see what had caused it. They saw the void before them flash, before another wave started coming their way, the distance slowly disappearing between them.

Krolia’s frown deepened. “This is strange. We shouldn’t be having another vision so soon.”

Keith’s hand darted to his knife subconsciously. He was well aware that he couldn’t fight a time wave with his knife, but the feeling of the blade’s handle in his hand grounded him. He watched, body tense, as the wave slowly approached, until it hit the space whale they were on.

What he hadn’t expected was the whale to wail in a way that could only be described as pure agony. A shudder shook the ground under their feet. They sank to their knees, trying to get a hold on something to keep themselves anchored. Up until that moment, the whale had navigated the time waves without concern, but seeing the alien whale thrash so wildly…

It meant something was terribly wrong.

“What’s going on?!” Keith shouted.

Krolia covered her face with her forearms, squinting at the sudden wind that came their way. “It’s space! It’s being distorted!” A snarl was ripped from of her chest. “We need to get out of here!”

“Krolia, get cover!” Keith screamed between the whale’s wails, trying unsuccessfully to make himself heard.

The wave was about to get them, and in one last effort, he hugged his wolf against his chest, burying his face in his ruffled fur. He felt his growl more than heard it, and then—

Then the time wave crashed against them. Keith felt his body being swallowed in a sea of bright colours swirling around him and pulling him in all directions, as if it was trying to rip him apart. Even with his eyes shut, he could see the light crashing against him, and his screams were drowned in the loud noise surrounding him.

Or, maybe there was no noise at all. He couldn’t be sure.

But as fast as they came, the light and the pressure disappeared, leaving Keith drifting aimlessly. He opened his eyes slowly, blinking at the pure darkness that surrounded him. He tried to turn his head, but his whole body was paralyzed, still throbbing painfully from the previous onslaught.

He couldn’t see Krolia nor the wolf, despite him being in his arms when the wave hit. There was no hint of a light source around him, not a single star shining to guide him, and there was no sound.

He was alone in the darkness.

Luckily, his suit was able to shield him from the harsh external conditions and provided him with clean air to breathe, but how long was that going to last? He was pretty sure his suit’s jets didn’t work, but even if they did, he had nowhere to go. There wasn’t any point of reference around him that could even tell him which direction to head to.

Was that the end? He had always thought he would die in battle, not stranded who-knows-where. And even if he had thought he was prepared to die, many regrets now swirled in his mind.

He still wanted to tell Pidge that he appreciated her silent company, or to tell Hunk that even though he was a bit cowardly at times, he could be so courageous when his team needed him. He wanted to tell Shiro that he would always be a brother to him, no matter what happened.

He wanted to tell Allura that he forgave her for what happened when she discovered his Galran heritage, something he knew still tormented her from time to time. He wanted to tell Coran… well, he didn’t really have anything to tell him, to be honest.

And he wanted to tell Lance… he wanted to tell Lance he was sorry. Sorry for not being the leader Lance had expected him to be, even when he had poured his all into being his right-hand man. Sorry for not trusting him with the doubts that had been tormenting him since he stepped inside the Black Lion, because he hadn’t even trusted himself with those. Sorry for leaving like that, for abandoning him without saying a word.

Now that he thought about it, Keith had a lot of quiznaking regrets, and he felt helpless.

With those thoughts in mind, the darkness swallowed him whole, leaving nothing behind.

* * *

If he was being honest, he hadn’t expected to wake up in what looked like one of the Garrison’s corridors.

As soon as he opened his eyes, he let out a pained groan, his body still aching all over. He was sitting on the floor, his back gently resting on the wall, and he had a migraine that threatened to split his head in half. But despite the pain, he stood up, just wobbling slightly before straightening up.

He was wearing his Earth clothes, something he hadn’t worn since he joined the Blades. He was even wearing his fingerless gloves, which he hadn’t been wearing outside of his visions.

So did that mean he was in another one of those time visions?

For some reason, that didn’t sound convincing. Apart from almost being ripped in half in the void, there was something weird about that vision, but he couldn’t put a finger on what, exactly. The colours seemed more vibrant, unlike the dull visions they had had before. It really looked like he could go and _touch anything_.

He was so consumed by his suspicions that he completely failed to notice one little detail; he had been reclining on the wall when he woke up, and he was still leaning on it as he thought.

Keith heard footsteps coming his way. He turned his head towards the noise, only to see a cadet turn the corner. He looked young, _very_ young, and his uniform was still wrinkled from being folded for a long time, which meant the kid had just started his first year of instruction. He was pretty short and had an awkward gait, and he had tanned skin and brown hair.

There was something about the kid that looked familiar, but when he tried to think of a name, none came to mind. Was it Tyler? Tailor? He wasn’t sure.

To be honest, he hadn’t paid much attention to his classmates when he went to the Garrison. He had been too focused on becoming a pilot that he'd never paid enough attention to anyone around him, save for when they wanted to pick a fight with him. Now that he thought about it, there was a kid that always wanted to pick fights with him, wasn’t there? What was his name? Griffith? Grayson?

Well, who cared.

Keith’s attention was piqued once again by the young cadet coming his way. He was holding a tablet practically against his nose, looking deeply engrossed with whatever was on it. He wasn’t looking at his surroundings, and Keith was pretty sure that he was going to trip on something at some point.

But apart from the kid, nothing else was happening around him, which was strange. Normally, when they had a vision, they always quickly related to Keith or Krolia's lives, but that one… it was too normal.

Just as the thought crossed his mind, the cadet bumped into him, sending the tablet he was holding as well as Keith's thoughts tumbling to the floor.

Keith stared in amazement as the cadet cursed loudly and scrambled to grab his tablet, checking for any cracks. Keith clenched and unclenched his hands. Had he—had he just touched something in a vision?

He didn’t have much time to dwell on it though, because the cadet turned his head to send Keith a death glare. However, Keith had already received too many of those in his life to feel threatened, so he had to stop himself from rolling his eyes.

“Hey, watch where you’re going!” The cadet squawked in a really familiar voice. “You could’ve broken my tablet!”

Keith’s surprise at having someone else see him was soon overpowered by deep annoyance. He crossed his arms and scowled at him. “Hey, you were the one walking without watching where you were going. I was literally just standing here the whole time.”

The cadet scoffed, but Keith noticed with a silly sense of victory that he was blushing in embarrassment. That’ll show him not to behave like a prick in front of strangers.

The kid grumbled and stood up, hugging his tablet close to his chest. “…I guess it wasn’t _entirely_ your fault. But you could’ve moved aside or something, still.”

That brat!

Before Keith could answer, however, the cadet cleared his throat and extended his hand to him, an uncomfortable frown on his face. “…I guess I need to apologize, so sorry for running into you, and all that. My name’s Lance McClain. Are you here looking for someone? I can take you wherever you need to go.”

Keith barely registered what the cadet— _Lance_ —said after he revealed his name. He could stare at the kid in front of him, everything gaining new meaning with this new information. That short, awkward kid whose big mouth was bound to get him in trouble was… he was…

“You’re so little!” Keith exclaimed in amazement.

Little Lance’s expression morphed from awkward tolerance to outraged indignance in the blink of an eye.

“I’m not little! And you’re an ass!”

Keith had a hard time keeping his face straight as he watched Lance drop his arms in fury, still maintaining the tight grip on the tablet. His irritated scowl was so _familiar_ that it made him wonder why he hadn’t recognized Lance when they bumped into each other rescuing Shiro.

Oh, yeah, because cadet Lance was a midget. Was he even taller than Pidge?

Lance threw him a dirty look when Keith snorted despite himself, and something seemed to cross his mind, because his look darkened further, if it was possible. “Wait, you look a lot like that Keith guy. Are you his brother or something? It would explain why you have such an awful attitude; it must run in the family.”

Keith’s lips quirked up in amusement and crossed his arms. Lance was surreal. “You know Keith?”

Lance scoffed. “Who doesn’t know that prick? That mullet-headed jackass that would rather show off in front of everyone than follow the protocol like _everyone else_.” Lance rolled his eyes and spat, “Of course I know Keith. The only good thing he has going for him are his insanely good piloting skills.”

Keith felt almost insulted hearing Lance talk about him like that, but instead of getting riled up, he took a deep breath and tried to calm down his instinctive need to quarrel with Lance. _Patience yields focus_ , he repeated like a mantra, until the need to fight the kid— _Lance_ —dissipated. Shiro would be so proud of him.

Instead, he cocked his hips and crossed his arms. “You seem to know a great deal about Keith.”

Lance spluttered, as if dozens of words were trying to get out of his lips at once. “I—I don’t know him!” he screeched, cheeks blushing hotly.

Keith frowned, confused. “That doesn’t sound like—”

“Anyway!” Lance interrupted him and pointed towards the corridor he came from. “The cadets’ rooms are in that direction; you’ll find your brother there... And if he’s not there, he must be brooding somewhere else. I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.” He hugged his tablet to his chest again, holding it like a shield to cover half of his blushing face. “My friend’s waiting for me, so I have to go. Bye.”

And little Lance left before Keith could say anything else. He stared at Lance’s retreating back, still hunched over in a clear sign of discomfort, and even at that distance he could see his ears burning bright red. Keith chuckled to himself; Lance hadn’t really changed in all those years. It felt quite nostalgic.

Suddenly, darkness swallowed him again, whisking him away from there, no matter how much he struggled against that force. He felt himself fall into the void again, but when he opened his eyes, he was on the space whale again, two very familiar faces hovering over him.

Keith made to stand up, but Krolia placed a hand on his shoulder, stopping him on his tracks. “Careful. You’re going to feel dizzy if you get up too fast.”

He followed her command and sat down with her help. He shook his head to clear his mind. “What... what happened?”

“What did you see?” Krolia asked instead.

“I…” Keith frowned, thinking back to what he experienced with Cadet Lance. “It was the past, but… I talked to someone there, someone I knew.”

Krolia’s scowl deepened. “Just as I thought. I had the same experience. I also went to the past.” She looked up at the sky. “It looks like we were both sent back in time, close to our timelines.”

“Is that even possible?”

She shrugged. “I’m not the most suitable person to be asking that, but based on what we’ve both experienced… I would say so, yes. Space and time seem to be distorting, just as we said before, and it’s sending us jumping through time. When the wave passes, it seems that it takes us back to where we belong. For now.”

Keith heard the hidden meaning behind her words perfectly; It was something he feared as well. If space and time was so distorted that it could transport them through time, how long would it take until they got stuck in the past?

Or worse, how long would it take until space was so distorted that they disappeared?

* * *

A good month had passed before another wave like that hit them again. Keith once again felt the overbearing tugging in all directions, determined to rip him apart, and the burning light against his closed eyelids before everything faded back to black. His body hurt like hell again, but he was relieved to feel something against his back. He had arrived somewhere, at least.

Keith slowly opened his eyes, wincing at the strong smell of chemical products that suddenly assaulted him. He was lying on his side, and there was something digging painfully into his back. He raised his head slowly, not feeling very keen on getting dizzy before he could check out where he was.

Ah, he was in a supply closet. That explained the smell.

He sat down, making the bucket trapped between him and the wall—so _that_ was what was digging into his backside! —roll away, finally free. He finally got up and promptly tripped on a mop, knocking down some of the products stored neatly on the shelves in the process. Everything fell to the floor with a loud clang that made Keith wince. If no one knew he was in there before, they sure did now.

After spending a whole minute debating whether to leave the cupboard in the state it now was, he started cleaning the mess he had made, realizing he couldn’t move until he cleared the way. Once everything was in its place—or at least out of the way—he _finally_ made his way to the door.

He opened the door just an inch, the opening big enough to peek outside. Once he made sure the corridor was deserted, he opened it fully and stepped outside of the room. From the look of things, he was at the Garrison again

And just like the previous time, he heard footsteps approaching. However, those were rushed, as if someone was running away from their imminent death. Then, he heard shouting, a voice he immediately identified as Iverson’s spewing threat after threat at whomever was running away from him. Keith instantly tensed, as if with muscle memory of his own time at the Garrison, and he turned towards the noise, getting ready for the incoming confrontation.

The next thing he knew, he saw Lance turning the corner, running for his life. He had his head turned to look behind him and his chest was clearly heaving from exertion, but he had that determined—and infuriating—smirk on his face.

Keith reacted immediately. Before Lance could see him, he stepped inside the supply closet, and when Lance passed by the door, Keith reached for his arm from inside. He tugged the boy inside and closed the door behind them, barely managing to stifle Lance squawk of surprise by covering his mouth with his hand.

He held Lance against the wall, trying to stop him from making noise. Lance looked up in surprise at him, which soon transformed into indignation. He started struggling against Keith’s hold, trying to shake off his hand to speak, but Keith shushed him.

Keith looked pointedly at him, then at the door. “Shut. Up,” he hissed.

Young Lance’s eyes widened in understanding and stopped struggling. The only sound in the room was Lance’s loud breathing hitting Keith’s hand. They heard Iverson’s shouts coming from outside, getting closer to the door, and they both held their breath when Iverson passed by. They breathed out relief when they heard his footsteps become fainter and fainter, until they couldn’t hear him anymore.

Once he was sure the coast was clear, Keith let go of Lance, who stumbled a bit. He looked from the door to Keith, once, twice, and the biggest of smiles blossomed on his face.

“Keith’s bro!” he chortled, sounding a bit breathless. “Thanks for the save, dude. Iverson would have totally caught me if it wasn’t for you.”

Keith took a step back, a bit taken-aback by Lance’s sudden friendliness. “Uh, no problem.”

“What are you doing back at the Garrison? Visiting Keith again? And what were you doing inside the supply closet?”

Keith didn’t have a good answer for those questions, at least not a believable one, so he just shrugged, hopping that was answer enough. However, he should have known his simple answer would only make Lance’s curiosity grow, as fond as he was of sticking his nose in other people’s business.

Just as he imagined, a smug expression made its way onto Lance’s face as he leaned against the wall, crossing his arms in fake nonchalance. It made Keith feel uncomfortable.

Seeming to catch on to Keith’s discomfort, Lance’s smile widened. “… So you’re hiding too, huh?”

“Yes,” he answered. There was no point on hiding it.

Lance chuckled to himself and relaxed his stance. “Well, then. It looks like we’re in the same boat.” His smirk grew into one of those stupid smiles Lance put on when he met new people, especially girls. “So, _Keith’s brother_ , do you have a name? It feels kind of weird to be calling you that, you know?”

Crap. A name. Why hadn’t he thought about that earlier? Maybe because, judging by how their first meeting went—or how most of their relationship had gone—he hadn’t expected Lance to be interested in him at all. He also hadn’t really expected to meet him again in the past.

But he could come up with a name on the spot, right? He just needed to…

“Yorak,” Keith blurted and regretted it as soon as the name slipped past his lips. Why was that stupid name stuck in his head?

Apparently, Lance found the name as stupid as Keith did, because when Keith called himself Yorak, he let out a loud snort. “ _Yorak_? No offense, buddy, but your name’s ridiculous.”

Keith huffed. “I know.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, what did you do to have Iverson screaming bloody murder at you?”

Lance grinned wickedly and pushed himself away from the wall with his fingertips. He brought his hands to his hips, but the movement felt awkward when his hands slipped. Lance grumbled something about “pockets” under his breath, but kept shortening the distance between them, which wasn’t much to begin with in the tiny closet they were in.

He stopped in front of Keith. He looked a bit taller than in his last time jump, but he was still a lot shorter than Keith. That fact made Keith happy for a reason he couldn’t explain.

“So,” Lance started. “I was in my room, minding my own business, and suddenly I get a _ginormous_ craving for milkshake, you know? So, yeah, I know you’re not allowed to use the kitchens without permission and that I could get in trouble, but the craving refused to leave, so I snuck into the kitchen after the kitchen staff left, I prepared a big milkshake and I took it back to my room. Following so far?”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Yes. You made a big milkshake. That doesn’t explain why Iverson looked like he was about to murder you.”

“Wait, wait, I’m getting there. So yeah, I was going back to my room, but to get there, I needed to cross the lounge Iverson was sitting in. Luckily, he was engrossed in reading reports or something, so I thought, ‘hey, I just need to tiptoe behind him to get to the other side, piece of cake.’ So, I did just that, and when I got close, I…”

Keith rose an eyebrow. “You…?”

At that, Lance shrunk into himself, sheepishly playing with his thumbs. “I tripped and spilled my entire milkshake over Iverson’s head.”

Keith stared at Lance, his words not quite registering in his mind. But when they did, a snort escaped from his mouth, which soon evolved into a full-blown laughter. He couldn’t—he couldn’t believe Lance could be so _stupid._ Meanwhile, Lance looked both surprised and pleased with Keith’s reaction.

“So anyway, yeah, you know why Iverson is chasing after me. Now I think I deserve to know why you’re hiding, huh?”

Keith crossed his arms, trying to think of something. “…I’m not supposed to be here, that’s why.”

“You came to visit your bro without a permit, huh?” Lance grinned.

“…Yes,” he lied.

Suddenly, he felt as if his breath was knocked out of his lungs. His vision had started to darken, and he knew he didn’t have much more time left to be in the past. He had to get Lance out of there before he disappeared right in front of him.

He shook his head and cleared his throat. “It looks like Iverson’s not around here anymore. We should check.”

Lance perked up. “Right!”

He walked to the door, opening it slightly and peeking outside. And Keith just watched him do it, fighting against the darkness that threatened to engulf him. He couldn’t disappear. He _mustn’t_ disappear.

But when Lance opened the door some more and said there was no one out, the darkness finally overpowered him, sucking him away from the scene. If he had stayed a second longer, he would have seen Lance turning to talk to him, only to realize he was alone in the little closet. He would have seen how Lance pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming and how he freaked out afterwards.

But Keith wasn’t there anymore. He was travelling back to the future.

* * *

If someone had ever told him that he would get used to travelling through time, Keith would have laughed in their faces. But it had been four months since the waves started taking them to the past periodically, and they had managed to find a weird routine in the craziness of it all. Normal waves interweaved with time jumps, and that made their somewhat boring lives on the space whale a bit more interesting.

Keith kept meeting Lance in the past, and every time he did, Lance was usually either running for his life or stuck in a sticky situation. He didn’t know how someone could get into so much trouble all the time, but then again, it was Lance.

However, after all that time, he still couldn’t understand why Lance was the only person he saw when he travelled back in time. He already knew that there hadn’t been many people in his life, but even he knew more than one person. He could have bumped into Shiro, maybe Adam, and even Hunk or Pidge, who were also cadets at the Garrison.

But no, it was Lance. It was always Lance.

He sighed, giving up on that thought. He hadn’t been able to figure out why in four months, he wouldn’t do it now.

There was some noise coming from behind him, and Keith watched Krolia join him beside the fire. Her hair looked messier than usual, as if she had just rolled out of bed and hadn’t bothered to make herself look presentable. However, he knew better than that; she had just come back from one of their time jumps.

“You okay?” he asked.

Krolia nodded. “Yeah. The jump was a bit rougher than normal, but I’m okay.” She eyed him. “Are you okay? You seemed to be deep in thought when I landed.”

“There’s just… stuff on my mind, I guess.” Keith shrugged, playing with the embers of the fire with a stick. He huffed and decided to be honest with her. “I just… I don’t get why I keep bumping into Lance. It doesn’t have anything to do with my past at all, and I don’t know how those visions are useful. I…” He threw the stick to the fire in frustration, lost for words.

Krolia didn’t say anything at first; she just stared at the flames burning in front of her. She took a deep breath and shifted in her seat until she was facing him. “I cannot say for sure. A long time ago I learnt that the universe has an odd way of doing things, secret from the ones living in it. You visiting your friend may have a secret reason, or it may have none whatsoever.”

“That doesn’t help me,” Keith grumbled.

Krolia chuckled at Keith’s impatience. “I know it doesn’t, but that is all I know. I can only advise you to learn as much as you can from this experience, no matter the reason. That is the only way to get something out of it.”

“I guess… I guess you’re right,” he sighed, not totally happy with the answer.

He guessed that if the universe wanted him to know why he went back and forth in time, it would let him know in some way or another.

They let time pass by in companionable silence. Eventually, Krolia left to get some water with the wolf while Keith waited for them at the camp. Of course, it was then when the universe decided to send another one of its waves at him. Keith merely stared at it lazily, waiting for its impact. He was getting quite tired of them.

He let the wave swallow him and spit him out in a different place and time. He landed with a soft thud on the floor, and he had to be getting used to the waves, because that time he didn’t even pass out, despite feeling as if he had ridden the highest rollercoaster of the universe.

Once the dizziness dissipated, Keith looked around him. The room was dark, and judging by the soft light coming from the window, it was the middle of the night. Looking closely, he recognised the room as a Garrison dorm, most probably a cadet’s room. The walls were decorated with pictures and posters he couldn’t see clearly—a bold move, considering the Garrison’s strict rules—and there were two beds, one of them empty.

Huh, that’s weird. Someone was skipping curfew.

Keith’s thoughts were brought to a halt when someone let out a head-splitting shriek from the occupied bed. He winced at the loud sound and missed the cadet fumbling with the light switch until the lights turned on. Keith blinked repeatedly to get used to the sudden brightness, and he could finally get a glimpse of the person causing him sensory overload, even though he was pretty sure he knew who it was regardless.

Lance was staring at him as if he’d just seen a ghost. He was curled into himself, grabbing the sheets like they were the sturdiest shield in the world. His hair and pyjamas were ruffled, but there was no hint of sleep in his face, which meant that Keith hadn’t woken him up. He felt a bit less guilty at that.

Keith slowly raised his arm, noticing how Lance flinched at the movement, and he waved awkwardly at him. “’Night.”

“ _Jesus Christ,_ Yorak!” Lance hissed and retreated to the corner of the bed, putting as much distance between them as possible. He didn’t let go of the sheets. “What are you doing here?! Where did you even come from?!”

Keith chose to ignore his questions, looking around the room instead. So he’d landed in Lance’s room, huh. How was he supposed to explain that one without him freaking out? His eyes landed on the empty bed again; at least he was glad he didn’t have to explain himself to two scared cadets instead of just one.

Which reminded him…

“Where's Hunk?” Keith asked, nodding at the unmade bed.

“Oh. He was hungry, so he sneaked out to the kitchen to grab some snacks—wait, how do you know Hunk?!”

 _Oops._ “You mentioned him before.”

Lance’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying! He’s my best friend; I’d know if I had talked about him.”

The cadet moved to the edge of the bed and stood up, taking the sheets with him, which he still held in front of him like armour. He stepped closer to Keith, suspicion helping him shake off some of his previous fear, and he started circling him.

“You know, _Yorak_ , you’re a mystery. I’ve been asking around to see if anyone knew you, but no one recognizes your name, not even the people in charge of the visitor passes. Your behaviour has always been really sketchy, and you seem to vanish when I’m not looking. At first, I thought you were a superspy or something like that, but, but—!” Lance waved at him wildly. “You appeared out of thin air like, like... like a ghost! So what are you?!”

Keith bit his lower lip, hesitating. “I... I can't tell you right now, but I need you to trust me, Lance.”

“Yeah, fat chance.” Lance crossed his arms defiantly. “I demand an explanation, or I'll call the people in charge here. They're military, you know? I'd be scared if I were you, Mr Ghost.”

“I'm not a ghost!”

Lance pointed at him with a brisk movement of a hand. “Prove it!”

“You've touched me before!”

“A-and how do I know that isn't a ghost trick?!”

Keith huffed loudly in frustration. How could Lance be _so ridiculous?!_ Ghosts didn’t exist, and he sure as hell wasn’t one of them. Getting a bit tired of the situation, he stood up, ignoring Lance’s jump of surprise, and he reached forward to place a hand on Lance’s shoulder. Lance shrieked again and put as much distance between them as he could, hitting the desk with his back.

“Begone, Thot!” he screamed, crossing his arms as a shield.

Once again, Keith completely failed to understand one Lance McClain, but that was old news. That had sounded like “internet language” as future Lance and Pidge had called it, and Keith had always been a lost cause when it came to internet language and meme culture, no matter how much his fellow paladins tried to explain them to him.

So he chose to ignore it, saying instead, "There, I touched you again. Do you believe me now?"

"No."

Keith wanted to strangle the boy. Or scream. Both of them would help in easing the frustration boiling inside him. Instead, he pinched his nose and took deep breaths, trying not to snap. If he snapped, Lance would freak out even more, and he didn't want that.

" _Fine_ ," he grumbled. "What can I do to show you I'm not a ghost?"

Lance gave him a once-over and crossed his arms, pensive, not noticing how the sheet slipped from his loose clutch to the floor. It really looked like he was considering it seriously, and Keith couldn’t believe he was stuck in such a dumb situation.

He finally let out a long sigh. "The only way I can think of is touching you again."

"Lance, we already tried that a minute ago and you screamed at me."

"Yeah, but I wasn’t prepared then! Also, this time it's going to be me touching you. Less chance of you playing with your ghost-y powers. Now! Extend your hand!"

"Why do I need to extend my hand?" Keith frowned.

Lance rolled his eyes. "Can you just, like, do something without complaining like an old man?"

"Hey! I'm not old!"

Lance waved a hand. "You say that, but I see something totally different. Now, hand?"

Keith cursed under his breath, hoping Lance couldn't hear, because he didn't want to antagonize him further, and he extended his hand. He was pretty sure he looked ridiculous, like a petulant kid asking his father for money—even though Keith was roughly a head taller than Lance.

"There. Now _what?"_

"No, no, _no._ You're doing it wrong." Lance shook his head and raised his own hand, extending it in front of himself as if he was asking for a high five. "You have to extend your hand like this, see? Like in Tarzan, when Jane and Tarzan are up in that tree and they say each other’s names and..." he trailed off at Keith's lost look. "...Please, tell me you've seen Tarzan at least once in your life."

"Nope."

Lance dropped his hand. "Okay, that proves it. You're a ghost."

"I'm not—!" Keith snarled but stopped himself. _How?_ How could someone test his patience this much? "Whatever. Let's just—let's try your hand thingy, okay?"

"Okay, okay." Lance raised his hands in surrender, but he smirked at him too. "I didn't know ghosts could be so pushy."

" _Lance._ "

"I'm _doing it_ , geez."

Tired of that stupid conversation already, Keith raised his hand again, this time mimicking Lance's movements from before. Lance followed soon after, but he didn't join their hands right away, oh no. He just stood there, looking at Keith's palm and biting his lower lip.

"What are you waiting for?"

"I'm just—if my hand goes through you, it's going to feel so weird."

"That's not going to happen, so get on with it."

When Lance finally joined their hands together, surprise was written all over his face. It really looked like he really thought he was going to go through Keith. He was such an idiot.

Their hands remained joined for a while, until Lance finally decided to drop his. Finally! His arm was getting tired.

"Okay," Lance started and cleared his throat. "You're warm and very much touchable, so I guess you're not a ghost."

"I told you so."

Lance waved his hand, ignoring Keith's jab completely. "Then how the hell do you do your thing? Like, how do you appear and disappear like a magician? Although that can't possibly be a magic trick, right? You don't look like a magician. Or like you have any interest in magic at all."

"You wouldn't believe me."

"Try me. I've seen a lot of weird stuff in my life. You're not going to scare me."

Keith smirked. "Tell that to the boy who was cowering in the corner of his bed mere minutes ago at the thought of seeing a ghost."

Lance opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, trying to find something to say. In the end, he crossed his arms defensively, a raging blush burning across his whole face. "Shut up. You just scared me when you appeared like that."

“Sure.”

“I told you to shut it!”

Keith opened his mouth to rile Lance up some more, enjoying his flustered reactions immensely. However, before he could do it, the door swung open, and someone stepped inside. Keith turned around with wide eyes, and saw a young Hunk still facing the door. Before he could even think of a hiding place, the darkness thankfully enveloped him, taking him away from the room.

He landed on the floor of the space whale with a loud thud, hissing in pain. He felt a soft nudge on his cheek, and he opened his eyes to see the wolf trying to get his attention.

“Hey, buddy,” Keith said, burying his fingers in the wolf’s soft fur and sighed. That had been close.

* * *

There weren’t many places Keith missed at the Garrison, but one of them was the roof.

It wasn’t a place many people knew about; after all, you could only access it through some hidden maintenance stairs, and you had to crawl through a manhole that sometimes got stuck to get up there. And once you got there, well, there wasn’t much to see. It was just a normal roof with solar panels installed in rows.

What people didn’t know was that the roof had the desert’s best view of the night sky.

Keith used to sneak out to the roof when he was still a cadet. He used to walk to the edge and just sit there, with his weight resting on his palms and his legs dangling from the edge. He would look up to the sky, to the thousands of stars shining above his head, so close, yet so far.

On the roof, Keith felt like he was closer to the universe.

That was why, when Keith’s last jump took him to that familiar roof, he immediately made his way to the edge and sat down in his usual place. He looked up and took a deep breath, rolling his shoulders and letting his muscles relax. It had been a while since he had seen those constellations, and it made him feel slightly nostalgic.

He heard the soft scraping of the manhole being opened and familiar steps coming closer to him. He felt Lance sit down beside him, but instead of yapping his ear off as he usually did, he remained silent.

Feeling more concerned than he would like to admit, Keith threw a glance at Lance. The boy was wearing normal clothes, with his too-big green hoodie hanging from his tense shoulders. He was looking up at the sky, just like Keith had been doing mere seconds ago, and his expression was carefully blank. Keith knew him well enough to know that that wasn’t a good sign. But how did he get Lance talking, again?

“Hey,” Keith said lamely and resisted the urge to facepalm. Way to go, Keith.

But Lance smiled crookedly at that, even if he didn’t turn his head to look at him. “Hey yourself. Fancy meeting you here.”

“What are you doing here?”

Lance shrugged and lied on the floor, putting his arms under his head. “Taking a breather. I like this place.”

“I like it too. Although I thought I was the only one who knew about it.”

“Well, I thought that too. I kind of accidentally stumbled upon it.”

“Something tells me you were in deep trouble when you found it,” Keith teased, but the annoyed comeback never came.  

He turned to look at Lance, confused, just to see him still focused on the stars above them, his face devoid of any emotion. Seeing him so silent made Keith feel uneasy. Keith bent a knee and rested his arm on it, turning his body towards Lance. It wasn’t the most comfortable of positions, but it let him look at Lance, so it would do.

“Lance? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he answered, way too fast.

Keith frowned. He had a really hard time believing it. “Yeah, right. Now try again with a better lie.”

Lance finally turned his head to throw him a dirty look. He opened his mouth to protest, but no sound came out of it. He huffed in irritation and sat up again, hugging his knees close to his chest.

“It’s stupid, anyway.”

“Lance, it’s not ‘stupid’ if it’s got you looking gloomy.”

“I don’t look ‘gloomy’” he protested. “I always look fabulous.”

“Debatable.”

Lance’s scowl deepened. “Hey! I resent that!”

“ _Anyway._ Don’t change the subject. Tell me what’s wrong.”

At first, Lance didn’t say anything. He just stared at Keith’s face with a pensive expression, as if he were looking for something specific in him. What Lance was looking for, exactly, Keith didn’t know, but it seemed like it was enough.

“I…” Lance averted his gaze and hugged his legs closer to his chest. “...You probably know already, but Keith got expelled today.”

Wait, what?

“He got in trouble because he punched Iverson in the face. People are saying that Iverson had been talking to some of the professors about the failure of the Kerberos mission, and he was putting all the blame on Shiro. It looks like Keith heard him and snapped. Typical.” He rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell him I said it, but he did all of us a favour. That asshole deserved it.”

Meanwhile, Keith’s mind was reeling. Didn’t Lance hate him when they were at the Garrison? Then, why was he feeling down because Keith had been expelled? It didn’t make any sense.

“That's it?” He blurted out. “You're upset because Keith was expelled? I thought you hated that guy.”

“Hey, hey, hold on a second.” Lance raised a hand to stop him from talking, pinching his nose with the other. “I never said I hated him, get it? Okay, sure, his air of superiority irks me all the time, and I want to punch him every time he looks through me, but I don't hate him. I just...” He dropped his hands in defeat and mumbled against his knees. “I just wish he recognized me as an equal.”

Keith’s breath hitched. He wasn’t used seeing Lance so vulnerable, his mask of fake bravado and flirty personality gone. Actually, he was pretty sure the only time he had seen Lance like that had been when he’d chosen to join the Blades.

Lance had always been resilient, the nexus of the team. Sure, he was whiny, competitive and kind of annoying, but he had that _charm,_ that natural pull that brought them together. He could act like a child, but he was always ready to jump to help them when they needed it.

So to see him so affected by his expulsion… it made Keith feel weird things in his chest.

“Lance…” Keith breathed, his name slipping from his lips subconsciously.

Lance didn’t seem to hear him, or if he did, he chose to ignore him. “But I never could compete against Keith, could I? He was immediately assigned to the fighter class while I was only good enough to be a cargo pilot.” He curled further into himself and let out a dry laugh. “Iverson called for me when Keith was expelled, you know? He says I’m going to be transferred to fighter class. But you and I both know I’m only being transferred to fill Keith's spot.” He sighed. “I don't have the talent he has. I don’t deserve to be a fighter pilot.”

Not being able to stay still anymore, Keith leaned towards him and placed a hand on his shoulder. Lance flinched, but he didn’t shake it off, so Keith decided to leave it there.

“Lance.” He cleared his throat. Why was his voice so rough? “That's not true at all. It takes more than talent to be a good pilot; it takes hard work, determination and a quick mind. Maybe you're not good now, but I can assure you, you'll get better. You're going to become one of the best pilots I've ever known, and I know Shiro.”

Lance shot him a pained smile. “Heh, you haven't seen many pilots in your life, then.”

“I have. And believe me when I say that I've seen you pull off many manoeuvres that would've gotten any lesser pilot killed.”

Lance looked at him after he said that, confusion clear in his face. “You’ve ‘seen me pull off’? In past tense? What are you even talking about?”

Keith pursed his lips, afraid of something else slipping from them. He shouldn’t have—how how could he have made a mistake like that? He had always been rubbish at talking to people; he didn’t know how to express with his words what he felt with his heart. He was always messing up, so he shouldn’t have started trying now, of all times.

Meanwhile, Lance was studying him with an unreadable look on his face that made Keith uncomfortable.

“…You’re not answering?” he finally said. “I guess it was to be expected. After all, everything about you has been a mystery since I met you in that corridor a year ago. I just... I just don't get you. How do you appear and disappear like that? How can you be so sure of the future? You barely know me, yet you speak to me as if we’ve been friends for a long time.” Lance ran a hand through his hair in frustration, making it stick out in all directions. “Just... who are you?”

“You wouldn’t believe me.”

Lance let out a dry chuckle. “See? You keep saying that. Why don’t you take the risk, for once? I hadn’t pegged you as the cowardly type, Yorak.”

Keith turned to face the stars. He needed to think before his emotions got the better of him. He and Krolia had discussed what to tell the people in the past, and they had agreed not to say anything to protect time from further distorting. Keith had no idea how time worked, but he guessed that if he altered the past, his present would be altered as well.

So he had chosen not to say anything, not even when Lance needled him for information every time they met. But what was even the point? He had already messed time up just by bumping into Lance so much, so what would him knowing the truth change?

 Maybe, as Lance had said, maybe he just had to take the risk.

“Just promise me you won’t run away.”

Lance made a ‘pshh’ noise. “Me? Running away? Who do you take me for?”

“I take you for the person who screamed at the mere thought of being in front of a ghost.”

“Hey! I’ll have you know that ghosts are freaking scary, okay?! But don’t change the subject; you were about to reveal your best kept secret to Lancey-Lance, so get on it, _pronto_ ,” he said, snapping his fingers.

Keith groaned. “Why do you have to be so weird about it?” Lance was about to reply, but Keith raised a hand to stop him. “Wait. Give me a second, okay? I need to sort my thoughts.”

Lance clamped his mouth shut before he could say anything else. Keith watched him turn to face him instead of the edge, sitting cross-legged, and even going so far as zipping his mouth shut, locking it and throwing away the key. Honestly, Lance was ridiculous. But at least he was quiet, he guessed.

“What if… what if I told you that Yorak is a fake name?”

“That’s not really hard to believe,” Lance immediately quipped, but after realizing he had spoken out loud he shut his mouth again, his teeth clicking loudly. He waved at Keith to continue.

Keith sighed in exasperation. He should have known. Although he had to admit that the light way Lance was taking it sure soothed his nerves.

“I’m not from here. Well, I am, but I’m not from… from this time. All the times I’ve appeared and disappeared were me being sucked away by time and space, throwing me from the future to the past. _My_ past, kind of. Following so far?”

Lance opened his mouth, but shut it immediately, opting instead to nod with wide eyes.

“So… yeah. I’m travelling through time and space. And my name is… my name is Keith. Keith Kogane.”

At first, Lance didn’t say anything. He just stared at Keith with his mouth slightly ajar, as if he had been so caught up in his own musings that he forgot what he was going to say. Then, he raised a shaky hand and placed it on Keith’s chest, probing it with his fingertips before pushing him a little. Keith’s mind went blank, trying to understand Lance’s actions, but when he did, he rolled his eyes so hard he could have sworn he saw the back of his skull.

“Lance, I swear to god, I’ve told you a million times already, I’m not a ghost!”

“I can see that… Keith.” Lance’s eyes darted to his face, and he let out a shaky laugh. “I guess you do look like a bigger, cooler, grizzled version of Keith, and after all the weird things I've seen you do, I guess I can believe anything. But if you’re really Keith… Oh, no.” Lance groaned and buried his face in his hands. “You’ve seen me do so many embarrassing things. I told _you_ that I admired you!”

Keith’s lips quirked up. “Not directly, but yes, I guess you did.”

Lance whined and flopped to the floor, covering his face with his arms. “God, I want to die. No, dying doesn’t fix anything. If you die instead, all my embarrassing secrets will stay secret. So, Keith, I’m sorry, but perish.”

“I'd like to see you try killing me, noodle boy.” Keith smirked.

Lance sprung up. “Hey! Take that back!”

“Why? It’s the truth.”

Lance barrelled into him with a battle cry, trying to bring him down. However, he was nowhere near the skill level he was at in the future, so Keith easily flipped him over and pinned him to the floor.

Keith smirked at Lance’s startled face. “You have a long way to go to even think about fighting me.”

“Do they train you to be a ninja in the future, or something?” he asked, breathless.

“You could say that, yes.” Keith let him go and sat up, Lance following behind. “Although you’re the one calling yourself a ninja sharpshooter, not me.”

“That sounds like me.” Lance rubbed his wrists and his cleared his throat. “So that means we see each other again, right? In the future.”

Keith nodded. “Yeah, we will. One of these days, late at night, a ship will crash around… there,” he said, pointing to where he remembered Shiro’s ship crashing. “You’ll go there to see what’s going on with Pidge and Hunk, and I’ll be there.”

“Mm, good to know.”

They stayed silent for a while, neither in the mood to say anything else. It felt as if their tiny bubble would burst if he did, so instead, Keith contented himself with staring at the night sky above them. But it seemed like the universe wouldn’t let them enjoy it any longer, because Keith started to feel the darkness creeping in on him.

It looked like he was running out of time.

“Lance,” he called for his attention. “I’m going to disappear soon.”

“Oh. Right.” He scratched the back of his neck and smiled sheepishly. “I guess… I’ll see you soon, Mullet.”

Keith scoffed at the nickname but let it slide. He had just enough time to wave goodbye before the darkness swallowed him once again. The last thing he saw was Lance’s slightly awkward, but still dazzling smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll post chapter 2 this weekend (?). Come scream at me at my [blog](http://livinglittlelie.tumblr.com/) if you like, or leave your thoughts in the comments below.
> 
> See you soon!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fasten up your seatbelts, folks, this is getting serious way too fast. Well, I say fast, but this is 9.5k, so is it, really? 
> 
> Also, for those who noticed the change in the total chapters number, yes, this isn’t the end. Apparently, I have zero chill in my body, and I had to divide part 2 (which was already a product of a too long one shot) into two parts. So expect a Chapter 3 in the near future, folks. 
> 
> A huge thanks to Froggy for being an awesome beta and being totally ready to brainstorm parts of the fic. You give me life every time you send me texts about the parts that made you laugh/swoon.
> 
> Enjoy!

If Keith had a dollar for every time the sentence "time is weird" crossed his mind, he would be a millionaire.

And the thing was, the universe had given him way too many reasons to think that.

For almost all his life, time had seemed to be the only thing that remained unaltered, ticking away without a care. But then they got stuck in a bridge between universes, and everything he thought he knew until then came crumbling down. All dimensions seemed to bend and twist chaotically, disobeying every rule and theory his teachers had tried to drill into his thick skull back in middle school.

In hindsight, he was glad he hadn't bothered to pay attention in class, because it would have been a huge waste of time.

The aftermath of that chaos was something Keith had no explanation for, and he was pretty sure he would never find an answer to satisfy his curiosity. The only thing he knew was that he, for some reason, had gotten a chance to start things over, to get to understand Lance a bit better.  

The harmless teasing that had confused and angered him before suddenly started making sense, and he felt stupid for falling for it in the first place. He started to notice Lance putting on a fake smile when he was upset, and when he wanted to talk about something, but didn’t know how. It was the most he had understood the Blue-turned-Red paladin in all the time he’d known him.

Still, even if Keith had learnt a lot about Lance in the jumps, there were many things he still didn’t understand—and he was pretty sure he never would . He was talking  about those unreadable looks Lance would sometimes shoot him when he thought Keith wasn’t looking, or his lingering touch that made Keith’s hair stand on end.

For a guy so open, Lance was surprisingly mysterious.                                        

Getting to understand him was one of the reasons why Keith started welcoming the time jumps, even if he still felt a bit wary about them. Lance could be pretty fun to be around, and he was always getting himself into trouble, which gave Keith an extra adrenaline kick, helping him  break free from the monotony of travelling the Quantum Abyss.

A distraction was something he was craving  right at that moment. It had been weeks since anything exciting happened to them, and Keith was bored out of his mind. He had already gone to get provisions, he had helped Krolia  chop some more wood and patrolled around camp to make sure nothing was amiss.

Having nothing else to do, he had tried teaching his wolf how to fetch, but whenever Keith threw the stick, the wolf looked at him with judging eyes, as if asking him what Keith wanted him to do with it, exactly. A pile of sticks rested ignored some feet away from them.

He was about to give up and try to get some more hours of sleep when the sky flashed when a bright light flashed across the sky. He stood up to get a better look, and he couldn’t keep the wide smile from his face. A time wave was approaching.

Keith didn’t believe in god, but he was ready to thank whomever up there for saving him from his own mind.

The time wave enveloped him and tugged him in all directions. Once it released him, Keith blinked slowly, trying to adjust his eyes to the soft light of his surroundings. Even in the darkness, he soon recognized the room he was in – the infirmary of the Castle of Lions. That meant the team had finally found the Blue Lion and left Earth.

He looked around the big room. There was one pod being used, and the night lighting was activated, hence why the room was so dark. A few steps away from the pod, Hunk was sprawled on a chair and snoring up a thunderstorm. He had probably been keeping an eye on his teammate while everyone else slept, but he had passed out after a while.

Taking a deep breath, Keith walked towards the pod to see who was inside. Judging by the fact that Hunk had been the one staying at the infirmary, he he had a pretty good idea about who it was.

His suspicions came true when he got close enough to see Lance sleeping inside. His face was slack, almost peaceful, if he ignored the little crease between his eyebrows. Lance had always been a very loud and expressive guy, nothing like what he looked like in stasis. It was a change too drastic for his liking, and it always left Keith feeling unnerved.

Keith stepped closer to the pod and placed a hand on the cold surface, watching Lance more closely. He wanted to check up on him, but he had no idea how to operate the pod. Coran and Allura were the only ones who knew how, and they weren’t there.

Exactly in that moment, Hunk decided to shift in his sleep and let out a loud yelp, making Keith jump in surprise. He glanced over to the Yellow Paladin, but Hunk still had his eyes closed, and soon afterwards, he resumed his snoring as if nothing strange had happened.

Just to make sure he was really asleep though, Keith waved a hand in front of his face. Hunk didn’t stir, and Keith exhaled through his nose, relieved.

A low beeping coming from the pod pulled Keith's attention back to Lance. One of the lights at the base of the pod was blinking yellow, and Keith had no idea what that meant. The low beeping increased in volume over time until it drowned Hunk’s snoring, and Keith had to cover his ears to try to quell down the noise. He had no idea how Hunk could keep on sleeping, considering Keith wanted to rip his ears off his head.

Suddenly, the crystal cover of the pod opened with a loud whoosh, and the cold air from inside came out, hitting his legs. Lance tumbled forward, still unconscious, and he would have fallen to the floor if Keith hadn’t caught him in his arms.

Keith immediately brought his hand to Lance’s neck to check for a pulse, and he let out a sigh of relief when he felt the strong beat of his heart underneath his fingertips. He then readjusted Lance in his arms, so he could hold him against his chest, and Lance's head could rest against the crook of his neck.

He shivered; Lance’s soft breathing against his neck tickled him.

Keith nudged the boy in his arms softly, being mindful of the possible wounds he may still have. “Lance? Are you awake?”

Lance’s frown deepened and he buried his face against Keith’s neck, making his heart skip a beat. He groaned against Keith’s jacket and opened his eyes with a few slow blinks, clearly confused.

He looked up and squinted at him, still a bit out of it. “Keith...?”

Keith's lips curled up in a little smile. “Hey, buddy.”

Lance’s eyes dropped to Keith’s chest, and his hands travelled up to rest on his shoulders. “When did your chest get so wide? And how are you taller than me…?” Then, he looked at his face and realization dawned on him. “Oh, you’re Future Keith.”

“Bullseye.” Keith frowned in worry. “What happened to you?”

Lance dropped his head onto Keith’s shoulder again, drawing absentminded circles on his chest with his fingers. “Huge-ass explosion inside the castle. I didn't notice Fake-Rover until it was too late. I hope Coran is okay…” He shifted in Keith’s embrace and grunted. “God, my whole body aches. I didn't know hair could hurt that much.”

“Fake-Rover? Explosion? Are we on Arus?”

“I think so, yeah,” Lance answered, sounding more awake. He groaned again and leaned further onto Keith, until the ex-paladin was the only thing holding him upright. “Can we sit down, or something? My legs feel like they’re made of jelly.”

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

Keith helped Lance sit down on the floor as carefully as he could, keeping an eye out for any sight of discomfort. Lance grunted when he touched the floor, but if he was feeling any kind of pain, he hid it pretty well. Just in case, though, Keith kept an arm around him, letting him rest his weight on him again.

“Better?”

Lance nodded. “Yeah, thanks dude. Anyway, we were having a pretty chill party with the little alien dudes—you know, the ones you threatened to kill a second after stepping out of the castle—but those overgrown space kitties decided to show up and make the castle explode. They went wild, but in the wrong way.”

The way Lance described it was odd, but he was pretty sure he was talking about when Sendak hijacked the Castle of Lions. If he remembered correctly, they had sent some kind of robot to blow up the Balmera crystal powering  the castle, and Lance had shielded Coran from the explosion. Not even his armour had been able to protect him from the blast, and he had passed out.

Oh, so that meant…

“So this is just after the bonding moment...” he said to himself.

Lance’s head perked up at that, looking at Keith in confusion. “Bonding moment? What are you… Oh. _Oh!_ ” he said, dragging the o, and he started snickering.

“What? What is it?”

“Keith, bro, my dude, Red Paladin of my life, did you just call cradling my almost dead corpse in your arms a 'bonding moment'?” Lance burst out laughing, clutching his stomach with his arms. “Mullet-boy, even _you_ should have better social skills than that. God, this is amazing.”

Keith ignored Lance’s teasing, even if he felt a bit self-conscious after eliciting that kind of a reaction from him. Instead, he focused on a detail Lance had let slip.

“Wait, you remember the bonding moment?!”

Lance shot him a crooked smile and hit Keith’s chest playfully. “Of course I do. I admit I was pretty out of it at the time, with the scorching pain in my back and all that, but I remember. I shot that Galra guy, right? So why wouldn’t  I?” He hummed. “You also said something. What was it…? Oh, yeah, ‘we make a good team’, didn’t you?”

Keith could only gape at him. He couldn’t believe it. “I… you… you remember. You really remember.”

“I just told you I do. So why—” Lance stopped in his tracks, focused on Keith. Then, his lips quirked up in mischief, before widening into a full shit-eating grin. “Future me pretends I don’t remember ‘the bonding moment’ just to rile you up, don’t I?” He guffawed at Keith’s expression. “It sounds so like me. Good one, future Lance.”

Keith sighed. He should have expected it, really. "I can't believe you."

"Hey, an eye for an eye, my dear mulleted samurai. Young you hurt my feelings by not remembering me back when we went to rescue Shiro, so… you deserve it."

“It's not my fault somebody hit his growing spurt after I was expelled! You were tiny when I was at the Garrison.”

Lance rolled his eyes. “And just because of that _completely unnecessary_ remark, I'm going to pretend I don’t know you either. Keith, who? Yorak? Doesn't ring any bells.”

Keith chuckled despite himself, and Lance soon joined him. However, their laughter was interrupted when Lance shifted in his seat and his breath suddenly hitched, his face scrunching up in clear pain. Keith placed his free hand on Lance’s shoulder, trying not to move him too much. He didn’t want to accidentally hurt him further.

Noticing Keith’s worried look, Lance looked up at him with an innocent smile that fooled no one. “I’m fine?”

Keith’s glare deepened. “You’re not. Let’s get you into that pod.”

“No.”

“ _Lance._ ”

“I don’t want to go to sleep yet!” Lance whined like a child. “Please mullet, don’t make me go back into that pod.”

Keith raised an eyebrow, not impressed. Lance was pouting fiercely, and he looked about to throw a temper tantrum, if it wasn’t for the amusement swimming in his eyes. He really was having the time of his life teasing Keith.

 _Patience yields focus_ , he reminded himself mentally, trying not to give into the desire to shove the paladin into the pod himself.

“Lance,” he tried again, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Get into that pod. You’re clearly still hurt from the explosion; you shouldn’t have woken up yet. I saw you coming out of the pod after spending three days in there, and you were completely healed by then.”

“But it makes me feel woozy when I come out.” Lance pouted.

“Don’t make me force you in there.”

Lance’s eyes bored into him with an intensity Keith hadn’t expected to see, and his lips quirked up in a crooked smile. He leaned more into his chest and looked at him through his eyelashes. “Why don’t you try, samurai?” he said with a husky voice.

Oh, it was _on_.

The thing was, Keith could get Lance to stand up and drag him to the pod, but that wasn’t satisfying enough. Lance was getting a kick out of making fun of him, so he would get just that in return.

That was why Keith placed his arms under Lance’s knees and around his back and stood up, picking him up bridal-style. The squawk of surprise that slipped past his lips was enough of a reward. He ignored the boy squirming in his arms as he made his way back to the pod, silently wishing he had a way of reminding him of the incident in the future. Lance already had enough blackmail material on him; he owed Keith.

“Hey! Let me down, you asshole!” Lance exclaimed, punching Keith’s chest.

“I’d dare you to try to make me drop you, but you’d probably hurt yourself.”

Lance glared at Keith’s smirking face and slumped in his embrace, crossing his arms and scoffing. Overall, he looked like a petulant child being dragged to bed, which, now that he thought about it, was exactly what was going on.

"The _nerve_.” Lance scoffed. “A guy protects a fellow teammate from a _bomb_ and this is the treatment he gets? I’m disappointed in you, Keith. I want to file a complaint.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “You’ll live.”

They finally made it to the healing pod. Keith placed Lance inside carefully, and Lance just let him do it, putting his complaining on hold. Keith looked around, trying to find a way to activate it, but once again, he was painfully reminded that he had no idea how those things worked.

“Having some trouble making the pod work, Mullet?”

“…Yes.”

Lance snorted. “Serves you right.”

“I’m sorry for worrying about your wellbeing. It won’t happen again.” Keith hit the metal panelling, but nothing happened. “Damn it.”

“Hey, chillax, dude, you’re going to wake Hunk up, and I’d love to see you try explaining how on the universe you got so grizzled overnight.” He shifted in the pod. “I have no idea how these things work either, but I could try helping you? After all, it’s not like we could call anyone else for help.”

Keith took a deep breath and released it through his nose. “ _Fine_. I don’t know how these things work either. The controls are in Altean, and I never bothered to learn how to operate them. You were the one who was always cleaning them with Coran.”

“Oh, so Coran and I also have bonding moments in the future?” His lips quirked up at Keith’s glare. “Too soon?”

“Anyway. As I said before, I have no idea why this thing stopped in the first place. Every time we’ve used them, they only deactivate when the person inside is completely healed.”

“Did it do something weird when it released me?”

“Well, it started beeping really loud, and there was a yellow lightblinking at the base.”

“Maybe that’s it?” Lance shrugged, and Keith didn’t miss the wince he tried to hide. “I mean, the castle has been inactive for... ten thousand deca-phoebes?”

“ _Deca-feebs.”_

Lance waved his hand in dismissal. “Whatever. The thing is, the castle has been inactive for a hell of a lot of time, so even if Coran-man did a thorough  check-up while we were team-bonding—okay, I’ll stop using that word, but you should see your face, it’s hilarious—well, I wouldn’t be surprised if things aren’t on top of their game for a while.”

Keith considered his words, paying paying his teasing no mind. It made sense, he guessed. Keith kneeled down, trying to pinpoint where that yellow light had been before, and noticed a little metallic part sticking out from it. He probed it softly with his fingers, and the thing seemed to give in.

“I think I found something. There’s a thing sticking out from where that light was. So let me just—”

“Wait!”

Keith flinched, startled at Lance’s sudden exclamation. He looked up at him, noticing how he seemed more twitchy and uncomfortable than before.

“What is it?”

“It’s just—” He sighed. “It’s stupid.”

“Lance, how many times—”

“I want to say goodbye! There, I said it.” He crossed his arms. “If you push that thing and the pod activates immediately, I won’t be able to say goodbye to you. And who knows when I’ll see you again?”

“Oh…” Keith let out, somehow touched by his words. “But you see me every day.”

Lance rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

Keith didn’t, not really, but he let it pass. “Okay, then. I’ll wait.”

Lance shifted from toe to toe, clearly uncomfortable. “Well, don’t stare at me like that! You’re making this weird.”

“How am I supposed to look at you, then?!”

“Just not like that!”

Keith was coming close to bashing his head against the pod walls, but he controlled himself. It was better if he let Lance come around on his own, instead of forcing him. He would only get more annoying that way.  

“Okay, okay.” Lance started again, getting comfortable inside the pod. “I… I guess I’ll see you soon, Keith.”

“See you on the other side, Lance.” he answered, letting himself smile a little.

Lance smiled sadly. “But that won't be you, huh? At least not yet.”

Keith frowned at his words. He stood up and leaned on the pod’s walls to get closer to Lance, hoping he could make him understand. “Hey, you know he’s still me, right? I know he's stubborn and has trouble communicating with people, but he’s been alone for a year, looking for Shiro. He'll open up eventually.” He smiled minutely. “You'll make me open up.”

“Are you sure?” Lance shrunk into himself.

“Yeah. After all, I’ve already lived through it, haven't I?”

“I guess…”

Keith straightened up, putting some space between them, and Lance shot him another one of those unreadable looks he still didn’t understand. At least he hoped he had gotten his point across.

He kneeled down again, his hand hovering over the loose knob. “Ready?”

“I guess. Have a nice trip back, Mullet, and don’t forget to write once in a while.”

Keith snorted. “I’d love to see you try explaining how you’re getting letters from the future.”

“I’d find an excuse. But hey, come back soon, okay?” Lance bit his lip in hesitation. “I mean it this time.”

“I’ll try,” Keith answered, his voice rough.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and and his eyes darted back to the loose knob. He knew he had no way of knowing when he was going to land in his time jumps, but something about Lance’s vulnerable expression made him promise the impossible.

Shooting another glance at Lance, he pushed the knob back into place. The inside of the pod was immediately lit up in a soft blue light, and the glass cover fell back into place. Keith stood up and placed one of his hands on the pod, Lance soon joining him from inside. Lance sent him a shaky smile that warmed him up from the inside, a tender feeling he couldn’t name yet threatening to burst out of him.

Keith kept watching Lance until finally his eyelids dropped shut and his hand slid back to the side, limp in his sleep. He took a shaky breath and released it through his nose, forcing himself to take a step back. His hands felt cold.

“Have a nice sleep, Lance.”

Keith sat down on the floor, resting his back on the pod, and waited for the time wave to take him back to the present. He closed his eyes, letting himself drown in the noisy silence of the castle, so familiar and foreign at the same time.

He wanted to come back.

* * *

Keith didn’t have to wait long to get back to the castle, something he was thankful for. He had been left very shaken up in his last jump, and even if he knew how things had turned out in the past, he felt somewhat anxious.  

For the first time since he started time-jumping, he got back to the present with more questions than answers. He already knew that Lance habitually hid his insecurities, only letting them show when they threatened to overwhelm him. The last jump had been no different, but something about seeing Lance so vulnerable had stirred something within him he had no explanation for.

It had felt… intimate, in a way. It had felt as if there were no walls between them, despite being separated from each other by the pod’s glass. In all his life, Keith hadn’t experienced any “intimate” moments with anyone else, and he hadn’t known something so simple would baffle him so much.

But instead of questioning it, Keith buried his feelings deep within his brain, like he always did. He didn’t need that kind of stuff clouding his mind.

That time, the wave took him to the castle’s kitchen. He immediately spotted Lance on the other side on the room, facing the wall. Keith scowled in annoyance when his heart skipped a beat at the sight of him, but he ignored it and made his way towards him.

As he got close, he started noticing more details about Lance. He was wearing the sleeping clothes the castle had provided, and his body was as taut as a drawn bow string as he hovered over the goo hoses.

Still unaware of Keith’s presence in the room, Lance inched forward, cautious, and touched one of the hoses. He immediately drew his hand back to his chest, as if the hose was about to bite him, and curled further into himself.

Keith couldn’t help but snort. “What are you doing?”

Lance let out a loud shriek and instantly jumped away from both the hose and Keith. His shocked eyes rested on Keith, who had crossed his arms unimpressed, and and the fear on his face soon turned into anger. He pointed an accusing finger at him and waved it wildly.

“Quiznak, _Mullet_! Don't sneak up on me like that! You almost gave me a heart attack—oh.” He relaxed slightly. “You’re Future Keith, aren’t you? Hey, man.”

“Hey yourself.” He smiled.

Lance let out the breath he had been holding. “Dude, you have to warn a guy when you magically appear in the room. I’ll have a heart attack one of these days and I’m still too young to die.”

“You scared yourself before I could.”

“Don’t test my patience, Mullet, or I’ll make you wear a bell.”

“I’ll cut your hand if you ever try to do that. I’m not a cat.” He deadpanned. He then took a seat in one of the chairs. “By the way, what’s got you so jumpy?”

Lance threw his arms to the sky theatrically. “The castle went completely bonkers today! That Sendak son of a quiznak messed with the castle when we were transferring his memories, and everything went to hell way too fast.”

“Oh, yes. I remember that one.” Keith winced, remembering how many times he almost died that day. “That sucked.”

“Right?!” Lance slumped down in the chair beside Keith’s. “Ugh, I’m exhausted, but I feel so wired that I just can’t relax. I almost died today, you know? I got stuck in a healing pod, and when I managed to get out, I got stuck in an airlock. That robot would have jettisoned me to space if it weren’t for you.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “So… thanks, I guess. For saving my life, and all that.”

Keith smiled a little. “I think you’re thanking the wrong version of me.”

“There’s no way I’m thanking young Keith.” Lance dismissed the thought with a wave. “It would go straight to his ego.”

He shook his head. “You’re ridiculous.”

 _“You’re_ ridiculous,” Lance immediately retorted.

Keith huffed in a mix of fondness and exasperation. How could someone be so… Lance?

He threw a glance at the goo hoses. “That doesn’t explain why you’re afraid of the hoses, though.”

“I’m not afraid!” Lance exclaimed and eyed the hoses suspiciously. “Hunk told me the goo attacked him when the castle went wild, so sorry for being a bit skittish over the fact that my home tried to kill me and everyone else inside it.”

Keith got up without a word and made his way to the hoses. He grabbed two bowls and the hose, and he filled them with goo. Then, he made his way back to the table and placed the bowl in front of Lance, dropping one of the spoons inside. Keith couldn’t help but smirk smugly at Lance.

“There you go. And surprise! The goo didn’t attack me,” he said, taking a seat again.

Lance relaxed in his seat. “Honestly, I thought you were going to shoot goo at me back then. I’m glad you didn’t do it; I just washed my pyjamas yesterday.”

“And give you more reasons to get revenge on young me? No, thanks.”

“You can’t possibly think I would be petty enough to do something like that.” He then rolled his eyes at Keith’s unimpressed look. “Come on, Keithy-boy. You’re breaking my heart, here.”

“That’s so sad.”

“Alexa, play Despacito!” Lance immediately answered. However, his face fell at Keith’s obvious confusion. “Remind me to introduce you to the fantastic world of memes.”

“You already tried. It didn’t work.”

Lance hit the table with his fist. “Damn. Well, I just need to keep on trying.”

They fell into a companionable chatter as they ate their goo, although Lance did most of the talking. He started telling him little anecdotes about his life in the castle, and he was surprised by how many times Lance managed to cause a ruckus without Keith noticing in the past. He guessed he’d been too preoccupied in the training room to notice.

That, of course, brought Lance’s playful jabs back into the conversation. Fuelled by Keith’s silence, he pushed and pushed, and Keith did his best not to retaliate. That was exactly what Lance was looking for, and Keith was better than that. He was more mature now, he could totally put up with some harmless teasing, right?

Wrong. Because after what felt like hours of teasing, Keith just _snapped_. His spoon moved without a conscious thought, catapulting some goo and hitting Lance square on the forehead. Lance’s squawk of surprise was music to his ears.

Lance silently brought his hand to his forehead and rubbed the goo off. Then, he shook his hand to get rid of it, splattering goo everywhere. He fixed Keith with a determined look and smirked. “Oh, you’re _on_.”

And just like that, the goo war started. Goo flew left and right until their bowls were empty, but not deterred with that, they scooped the goo splattered around and started throwing it to each other as well. At some point, Lance grabbed the hose, his fear long forgotten, and pulled the trigger, shooting goo everywhere and covering them from head to toe with sticky food.

That was until Keith finally managed to get to the hose without falling on his butt—which wasn’t easy with all the goo on the floor—and grabbed the hose from Lance’s hands, throwing it as far away as possible. And if he smashed some more goo into Lance’s face as revenge, well, he deserved it.

Lance spat a load of goo onto the floor, and Keith made a face.

“That’s disgusting.”

Quirking an eyebrow, Lance pointed at the already dirty floor with a deadpan expression. “It’s not like it makes much of a difference, does it? Anyway, let’s clean this up before someone sees this mess. I don’t want to explain why the kitchen ended up covered in goo again.”

“You could say the hose attacked you,” Keith said, his lips quirking up in a little grin.

“ _Ha, ha,_ you’re hilarious, Mullet. Why don’t you take your comment and shove it up your—”

Whatever Lance was going to say got interrupted by a loud yelp as he slipped on the gooey floor. Keith caught him before he fell to the floor, and Lance grabbed  his arm for dear life. Once Lance was steady on his feet, Keith made a move to put some distance between them, but Lance instead placed a hand on his chest to stop him. He shot Keith one of his crooked smiles, looking at him through his eyelashes.

“It looks like I fell for you,” Lance said in a sultry voice, leaning even further into Keith’s chest.

Keith frowned in confusion. “You fell because you slipped on the goo. Don’t go putting the blame on me again.”

Lance looked at him incredulously, until a loud guffaw escaped from his lips, shaking him from head to toe. He covered his eyes with his hand, and his loud laughing slowly turned into soft chuckles.

“Oh my god, Keith. Please, don’t ever change.”

Keith had no idea what just happened, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t understand even if he asked for an explanation. Lance was weird like that. Instead, he basked in the surprisingly comforting presence of Lance in his arms.

Lance was the one who broke their hug. He took a step back and cleared his throat averting his eyes to the side. “Well, I guess we need to start cleaning this up, right.”

Before he could answer, though, Keith felt the familiar tugging of the time wave taking him back to the future. He felt himself smile, amused. It looked like Lance was going to be stuck cleaning up the mess on his own.

“Hey, Lance?” he called for his attention.

“Hm?”

Keith’s smile widened. “I hope you don’t have a hard time cleaning the goo by yourself.”

“Wait, what?” Realization dawned on him, and his eyes widened in a mix of horror and betrayal. “Wait, Keith, don’t you quiznaking dare—”

But Keith couldn’t hear the rest of the sentence, as the wave enveloped him and took him away. When he landed in the present, he couldn’t help but laugh out loud, thankful, for once, for the wave’s timing. Lance’s distressed face was still fresh in his mind, and it only made him crack up even more.

He looked down to his body; all the goo that had stuck to him in the past had disappeared already, but he swore he could still taste the goo in his mouth. Absentmindedly, he licked his lips, letting his chuckles die down on their own.

He didn't remember space goo tasting so good.

* * *

Keith wasn’t one to have vivid dreams. He dreamed like everyone else, but he’d never stopped to think about them long enough to remember. Besides, the ones he _did_ remember were always too vague, so he didn’t really care about them.

Thas particular dream was no different from the others, but at the same time, it was unlike any other. He had never had a dream so vivid, clear enough to believe it was real, yet too abstract to make any sense of it. It felt as though Keith was trapped in a kaleidoscope of sun-kissed skin, warm hands and blue eyes that twinkled with happiness. It gave him an uncompleted image, but it still managed to fill him with a longing that threatened to rip his chest open.

In the dream, those eyes looked at him with love he didn't know he was yearning for until then, and those hands had whispered secrets across Keith’s skin, while goose bumps appeared, seeking his tender touch.

If he focused hard enough, he could almost hear someone laughing.

But, like always, his dreams seemed to elude him before he could enjoy them fully. That time, it was his wolf’s loud snarl what woke him up, leaving him slightly disoriented as he sat up. Noticing his wolf’s tense posture, Keith got to his feet instantly, his hand searching for his knife’s handle as he assessed the situation.

They were surrounded. It was the same creatures that had attacked the wolf when they found him, and there were too many to count. Krolia was a few feet away from him, already on guard and with her weapon drawn, waiting expectantly for the incoming attack.

And attack they did. Hordes of aliens suddenly pounced on them from all directions, quickly shortening the distance between them. They fought them off as best as they could, slashing and killing creature after creature, and trying not to feel overwhelmed by the attack.

One of the aliens managed to bite his arm, and Keith let out a snarl as he shook it off. Then, he stabbed it with his blade, instantly killing it. He kicked two more out of the way, dodging when another alien tried to bite him again. But no matter how many aliens he killed, more appeared out of nowhere.

His hand was getting slippery with the blood coming from his wound. His blade got stuck in the jaw of an alien when another one slashed his abdomen. Its sharp claws somehow managed to rip his  skin-tight Blade suit, and a grunt of pain escaped his lips as he felt the burn of a new wound. Still, he kept on pushing forward, adrenaline helping him ignore the pain.

The ground suddenly shook underneath his feet, and a loud wail reached his ears. Keith slashed another alien before looking up to the sky, just in time to see a time wave approaching. Cursing to himself, he kept attacking the aliens coming his way, trying to hold them off until the wave reached them.

And in the blink of an eye, there was nothing around him. Keith felt his body drift between dimensions, tugging and tugging until it spit him out somewhere new.

Once his feet touched the floor, Keith stumbled, but he managed to steady himself, placing a hand on the wall. He blinked rapidly, opening his eyes, and winced when a wave of dizziness swept over him, almost knocking him off his feet. It looked like the adrenaline had already started to wear off.

Another dizzy spell hit him—this time probably from blood loss, or maybe from the travelling between dimensions, he wasn’t sure—and he would’ve fallen to the floor if it wasn’t for two strong arms steadying him.

He opened his eyes—when had he closed them again?—and relaxed when he saw Lance holding him, with his warm hands, sun-kissed skin and deep blue eyes that weren’t twinkling with happiness, dull with worry instead. That felt wrong. Very, very wrong.

He had a feeling he wasn’t making much sense in his head, but he chalked that to time travel after effects.

“Hey,” Keith finally muttered.

Lance’s frown deepened. “Don’t ‘hey’ me. What the hell happened to you?”

Keith tried to shrug nonchalantly but winced in pain. Ah, he didn’t remember the wound in his arm. “We were attacked, that’s all. ‘Snot a big deal.”

“Not a big deal, my ass.” Lance’s eyes trailed down to Keith’s jacket, his eyebrows rising to his hairline. “Wait, is that blood?!”

“…No.”

Lance let out an exasperated groan and maneuvered Keith backwards, forcing him to take a seat. Lance stood in front of him in all his tall glory, and Keith felt nostalgic for some reason. It had been a while since he’d had to look up to look at him.

Lance crossed his arms and looked pointedly at him. “Take off your jacket.”

“Where are we?” Keith asked.

“My room. Now, your jacket.”

Slowly, Keith took off his jacket, hissing when he made a brisk movement that made his wounds throb painfully. Once he took the jacket off, he simply dropped it on the floor and reluctantly showed Lance his wound. Thanks to his short sleeve, the bite was completely visible, and blood still dribbled from the open wound, slowly making its way down to his gloved hand.

“ _Jesus Christ_ , Keith! It looks like a massive dog gnawed at your arm.”

Keith shrugged in answer. Lance kneeled in front of him, pushing the dirty jacket aside with his hand. His hands hovered over Keith’s arm, not daring to touch it.

“Keith, this looks really bad. We should get you to a pod.”

“No. I can’t go into a pod.” Before Lance could retort, he continued, “And it’s not because the team can’t know I’m here. I’m a time traveller. I have no way of controlling the jumps, and I don’t want to know what would happen to me if I jumped while I was in an induced stasis.”

Lance’s lips pursed into a thin line. “I hate to admit it, but you’re probably right.” He groaned and pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead. “This goes against everything my mother taught me, but okay. Just… wait here, okay? I’ll get some stuff from the infirmary to at least stop the bleeding.” He grabbed Keith’s jacket from the floor and offered it to him. “Could you apply some pressure to the wound with this? I don’t want you bleeding all over my bed.”

Keith accepted the jacket and Lance stood up. He made his way to the sliding door, throwing a lingering look over his shoulder before he left the room. Once the door slid shut again, Keith folded his jacket into a ball and brought it to the wound, hissing through his teeth. That… really hurt, but Lance was right. He had to stop the bleeding.

After what felt like an eternity, the door slid open again and Lance stepped inside the room, this time carrying a little first-aid kit. He kneeled in front of Keith again and put the kit onto the bed to Keith's side, before opening it, revealing bandages, disinfectant, and other stuff, neatly placed inside.

“Show me your arm again.”

Keith lowered the bloody ball that his jacket had become. Lance inched closer and grabbed his arm, turning it a little to look at the bite wound closely. His frown deepened the more he looked at it.

“It looks worse than it is,” Keith commented, trying to lighten the mood.

“Yeah, no. I’m not believing that. Have you seen your arm? Knowing you, you could be stabbed twenty-seven times in the stomach and say that it looks worse than it is, you self-sacrificing idiot.” He nodded at the bite wound. “And by the way, I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure you need stitches.”

“Do you know how?”

Lance raised an eyebrow. “What? To give stitches? A bit.”

“Then go ahead.”

“…Are you sure?”

Keith nodded in answer. Lance bit his lower lip in hesitation before lowering his gaze to the first-aid kit. He rummaged around for a bit, and took out a sterilized needle, medical thread and one of the bottles with an Altean label.

Lance showed him the bottle. “This is disinfectant. It’ll sting like hell when it touches you, but it numbs the pain super fast. It should also keep you from dying with every stitch.”

He shook the bottle for a while and uncapped it. He threw Keith a warning look before spraying his wound, and the hiss that escaped from Keith’s lips was embarrassingly loud.The burn was much more painful than he expected. However, it wasn’t long until the numbness started spreading, until he couldn’t feel a thing.

“Good?” Lance asked.

“Good.”

“Okay, I’ll stitch you up now. Tell me if it hurts too much, okay? And if I find you holding back again I’ll stab you with the needle.”

“You’ll stab me with the needle either way.”

Rolling his eyes, Lance reached for the sterile needle and the thread. He slowly stitched him up, determination making up for clumsiness coming from inexperience. Keith decided to focus on Lance’s face, on his pinched brow and the little hint of tongue that peeked from his lips, completely absorbed with his task. Keith had never sseen that expression on him, much less directed at him. He guessed it was part of getting to know him better.

Something Lance had said before stuck in his mind, though, and he decided to voice it out loud. “I’m not self-sacrificing.”

“Huh?” Lance answered, his eyes never leaving his work.

“I said that I’m not self-sacrificing.”

Lance quirked an eyebrow and sent him a side glance. “You’re kidding, right?” When Keith didn’t answer, Lance lowered his hand. “Come on, Keith.  You’re the most hot-headed individual I’ve met in my life. You dived straight in to fight Zarkon the first time we bumped into him, and we were still in our Lion-diapers! And when Zarkon started tracking us, you left with Allura for a half-assed reason.”

“Hey, I had a valid reason for that!” Keith protested, and he wished he could cross his arms. “Ulaz had a blade similar to mine, and I thought it could have some kind of technology to track me down as well, or something. We’d been piloting sentient lion ships; at that point I was ready to believe anything.”

“You know that this just proves my point further, right? You’ve always been a very impulsive guy, Keith.” Lance smirked and resumed his patchwork, giving him some more stitches before reaching for the gauze and bandages. “Whenever you come up with a plan, you stick to it regardless of how risky it is, and it’s very hard to get you out of it.”

Keith winced. He was very aware of that, and it had been the reason for his decision to give up his position as the Black Paladin. He’d like to believe he'd gotten a bit better under the intense supervision of the Blades, but he knew he was just as impulsive. The only thing that had changed were his goals.

In times of need, he would always make his choice. He would protect what he cared for the most, even if he risked his life in the process.

Lance stopped bandaging his arm. "You have a pretty intense frown up there, dude. What are you thinking about? Am I hurting you?"

Keith shook his head. “It’s okay. I just—I know my recklessness has put you guys in danger before. I acted without thinking. I…” His voice drifted, not really sure what else to say.

“Wait, you aren’t apologizing, are you? Because if that’s the case I need to film it solely for blackmail purposes.” His grin widened at Keith’s glare and he resumed bandaging his arm. “Although I have to admit you’re getting a bit better at listening to others, these days. When Shiro disappeared, I was convinced you’d leave to look for him, but you actually stayed. You surprised me, not gonna lie.”

“So Shiro disappeared already?” he asked, and Lance hummed in answer. “So this means you’re piloting Red.”

“Yep! And how crazy is that? I went from being your rival to your right-hand man.” He snorted. “I still have trouble controlling Red when he goes at full-speed, but I’ll get there. I hope.”

“You will.”

Lance’s lips quirked up, but he dropped the subject. Instead, he focused on finishing bandaging his arm, and Keith contented himself with watching him. He was still in awe, seeing Lance being so uncharacteristically tender. He didn't know why, but he was oddly fixated on Lance's hands. Had they always been this warm?

Maybe he was dizzy because of the blood loss, but he could clearly feel his stomach doing flip flops.

Keith could admit that he'd been caught off-guard by Lance’s caring side. He knew Lance had a big family—he always mentioned them when he was feeling homesick—so he guessed that taking care of people came with the whole “big family” package. Keith had only had his father, so he wasn’t sure.

To be fair, Keith knew that Lance had always cared for them too. He wasn’t talking about protecting them in battle, although that was also part of it. He meant the gestures that Lance left in his wake; stupid jokes that helped ease tense situations, incessant yapping when someone didn’t know they needed company, and challenging words to push them forward.

But this silent nurturing? Now that was something Keith wasn’t used to. He could see Lance acting like this with Hunk, maybe even Pidge, but him? Lance had always been harsh with him, ready to rise to the challenge. He was rude, closed off, and he didn’t pussyfoot around him when he had to call him out.

The Lance he knew would never have let Keith's past self see him this way.

And that was exactly what was bothering him, wasn’t it? He didn’t understand why Lance treated him so differently, when he was exactly the same person. Why was he so guarded with past-Keith and decided to trust him instead? It made no sense.

Unaware of Keith’s confusion, Lance stopped bandaging Keith’s arms to treat the little cuts on his hand. Lance’s fingers fluttered carefully over his skin, making sure he didn’t leave any scratch unattended. It was too much for Keith.

“Why are you so different?”

Lance’s nose scrunched up when he frowned in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“You. You’re different from what I remember. You… You just…” Keith ran his free hand through his hair, frustrated. “You joke around with me and treat me with care, but you're always rude and trying to pick fights with my past self. I don’t understand why there’s a difference between us. We’re the same guy.”

“If this is about the bonding moment, you were the one who told me—”

Keith shook his head. “It’s not that. Until I started piloting the Black Lion, every memory I have of you has you glaring at me in it. I don’t understand why you were always so harsh to me. I thought it was because our personalities just clashed, but…”

Lance didn’t say anything at first, instead focusing intensely on Keith’s hand. He played with the bandages in his hand, subtly rolling and unrolling it, almost unaware of what he was doing. Keith wanted to take the roll from his hand and chuck it to the other side of the room, but he waited patiently for his answer instead.    

After what felt like an eternity, Lance sighed. He started bandaging Keith’s hand, avoiding looking at him. However, before Keith could yank Lance’s face up to make him look at him, Lance started speaking.

“It’s not… I just—” He groaned and covered his eyes with a hand. “Look, this is as confusing for me as it is for you. It’s not like I can go to anyone to talk about the guy that keeps visiting me from the future, can I? It would be my free ticket straight to the madhouse. Huh, are there space madhouses? I bet they are.”

“Lance.”

Lance dropped his hand and eyed Keith through his lashes. “Hey, cut me some slack. I’m trying to put my thoughts in order.”

“By thinking about space madhouses?”

“You have to admit that there’s the possibility that—” He stopped himself. “Right. I… I don’t really know how to explain it. It’s as if you’re the same guy sometimes, but other times you’re completely different people. Like, I don’t know… clones?”

“What the hell?”

“Yes, exactly like clones!” Lance grinned as if he had discovered the panacea. “You have two people with the same body, and maybe they even share the same memories, but it’s what they do with those memories, and the different experiences they live through that shape them differently. See? I’m a genius.”

Keith frowned. “I still don’t understand.”

Lance patted Keith’s hand. “Of course you don’t, Keithy-Keith.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“Okay, okay. What I meant to say was that it’s the same with you guys, at least from _my_ perspective. Present Keith didn’t know me when he met me; Future Keith _did._ Present Keith is closed-off and relies only on himself; you... well, you’re also like that, but you share more than your past self. It’s all the tiny differences that makes you, well, different. Does that make sense?”

“I guess?”

Lance finished bandaging his hand and tied it up. “But anyway, that’s more or less what’s going on.” He scratched the back of his neck, uncomfortable. “It's... weird talking to a Keith that doesn't know me as well as you do. I have to hide so many things from you that I end up snapping at you.”

“Oh,” Keith said, not sure how to react.

Lance snorted and looked up at him. His eyes finally shone with mirth, Keith noted with relief. “'Oh'? So eloquent, Samurai. No wonder I make fun of you and your social skills all the time. Now show me that gash in your stomach—and don’t try to hide it, I’ve already seen the bloodstain.”

With a huff, Keith took off his shirt and dropped it on the floor with his jacket. Lance happily tended to the wound, which was only a superficial scratch thanks to the protection of his suit. That meant no more stitches, which was a relief. Once he finished spreading disinfectant on the wound, Lance covered it with gauze and compression bandages.

“There you go, all patched up.” He patted Keith’s knee and stood up. “Wait, let me lend you a shirt; yours is drenched in blood.”

“Wait, I don’t—”

Lance raised a hand to stop him from talking. “ _Ah, ah, ah_. Just let me do this, okay?”

Lance was rummaging inside his wardrobe before Keith could offer an explanation. Considering he always appeared in the past with his Earth clothes, no matter what he was wearing in the present, he was pretty sure he was going to lose the t-shirt to the void. He wasn’t even sure if the bandages were going to last in the time jump.

But instead of protesting, he contented himself with stretching, making sure the bandages weren’t too restrictive. If they _did_ survive the jump, he wanted to be able to move. He had no idea what was waiting for him on the other side.

“Keep doing that and you’ll tear open all your stitches.”

Keith dropped his arms and accepted the shirt Lance was offering him. “I need to make sure I can move freely before I go back.”

“Be careful, either way. I’m not patching you up again because you decided to be a masochist and pull at your stitches.”

Keith ignored his jab and put on the shirt. He felt the bed dip beside him, and careful— _warm_ —fingers soon joined his, helping him with his arm and the bandages on his abdomen. Lance’s smell still lingered in the t-shirt, enveloping him like a hug. It was so comforting he wanted to bury his nose in the cloth, but he refrained from doing it. If Lance ever found out, he would never let him live it down.

Some movement at his side pulled Keith's attention back to Lance, still sitting beside him. He had crossed his legs on the bed and had his eyes fixed on Keith’s bandaged arm, now partially covered by a sleeve.

“…Say, Keith.”

“Hm?”

“Why are you alone in the future?”

Keith froze. “I’m not… I’m not alone. In the future, I mean.”

“But you’re not with us, right?” Lance raised his eyes to meet his with a look that rooted him to his seat. He could only nod in answer. “Why?”

Keith lowered his gaze to his hands and bit his lip. “I… I can’t answer that.”

“Why not?!” Lance frowned. “If you’re worried about me knowing too much, then that’s no trouble! You’ve already spoiled some stuff from the future, and everything’s going okay so far. Just tell me so I can find a way to help you. I’m sure we can come up with a plan to get you out of wherever you are—”

“I can’t tell you because you’ll try to stop me!” Keith let out and gritted his teeth in frustration. _Too much. It was too much._

Lance’s eyes widened. “What…?”

“Being there was my own choice. I don’t regret making it, and even if I hadn’t expected to be jumping through time and space, I wouldn’t change it. Moreover, I… I’m already close to finish my mission, and nothing else is holding me here. I’m free to go.”

They stared at each other, a silent battle of wills happening between them. Lance was angry, he could tell, but he was making an effort not to snap. Keith was relieved about it; he had already spent enough time thinking about his decision to leave the team, and the implications it would have on his life; he didn’t need anyone else holding it against him as well.

Keith wasn’t a fool. He knew that, if he kept jumping through time,he would eventually land in a time when he wasn't on the team. Lance would most probably confront him about it then, but did it make him a bad person to avoid the subject as much as he could? He didn’t want to fight Lance.

Lance seemed to catch on to Keith’s reluctance to talk and he deflated, anger soon replaced by beaten acceptance.

“Then promise me something, okay? Like, I get it if you don’t want to tell me about it—although if you think _I_ ’d stop you from doing it if I knew what was going on, then it must be a really quiznaking stupid idea, just saying—but,” Lance reached for his bandaged hand, holding it with care. “Promise me something?”

“What?” Keith asked with rough voice.

“Just promise me that you’ll be careful, and that you’ll come back to us.”

Keith hesitated. “I… I can’t promise that.”

“Then promise you’ll try, at least. Please?” He squeezed his hand. “You’re part of our family, Keith, and family means no one’s left behind or forgotten. And I might have borrowed that phrase from a Disney movie, but the point still stands. You shouldn’t be out there all alone; we belong together.”

Keith lowered his head, swallowing the lump in his throat. He clenched his eyes shut, trying as hard as he could to keep his feelings at bay. He felt the hands that had haunted his thoughts since he had woken up absentmindedly travel up until they rested on his back. And then, those hands were pushing him down, until his forehead rested on Lance’s shoulder.  

“It’s good to rely on others from time to time, you know?” Lance mumbled against his ear.

Those simple words were enough to break Keith’s resolve. He felt his arms embrace Lance, his hands clenching his sleeping shir. He took a deep breath, trying with all his might not to cry, but it was so damn _hard_ , more so when Lance was holding him as if he was about to break.

“Please, Keith. Please, promise me you’ll try to come back home.”

After a few seconds, Keith nodded against Lance’s shoulders, and Lance immediately relaxed.  The hands that had held him, travelled up and buried themselves in Keith's hair, fingers rubbing little circles against his scalp.

He didn’t bother to move when he felt the time wave coming back. When he opened his eyes, he was already in the present and his arms were empty, Lance nowhere in sight. He looked down to his chest, only to see the torn Blade suit instead of Lance’s shirt, but he was already expecting that. However, he could see a hint of white peeking through the long gash, so maybe the bandages made it…?

Slowly, he removed one of his gloves, uncovering fresh bandages that still hugged his whole arm. Keith clenched his hand into a fist and closed his eyes, emotions still fighting a never-ending battle within him. He let out a shuddering breath and allowed himself to fall on his back, covering his eyes with his forearms. He still didn’t have a name for what he felt whenever he saw Lance, but either way, he was diving right into it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hoped you liked this update. Chapter 3 will come soon(-ish, i'm in the middle of moving into a new house 7h away from here, and the move's been hectic as quiznack).
> 
> As always, come scream at me at my [blog](http://livinglittlelie.tumblr.com/) or leave your thoughts in the comments below.
> 
> See you!


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